Did Watchmen Kill the BioShock Movie?

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Comic book movie to blame for adaptation's failure?

By Max Nicholson

It's unfortunate that the BioShock movie never took off, because at one point, it was all smooth sailing: the film had a budget of $200 million, and with Pirates director Gore Verbinski on board, what could go wrong?

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However, that all changed after sizable budget cuts and Verbinski left the project. While speaking at a BAFTA event in London earlier this week, Ken Levine explained why he thinks the project didn't work out -- and the culprit may actually surprise you (via Edge Online): "There was a deal in place and it was actually in production at Universal, and Gore Verbinski was directing it. And what happened was -- this is my theory -- it's a very big movie and Gore was very excited about it and he wanted to make a very dark, what he would call a 'hard-rated' horror film -- an R-rated film with a lot of blood. Then Watchmen came out -- and I really liked Watchmen -- but it didn't do well for whatever reason and the studio got cold feet about making an R-rated $200 million film."

He said Universal "brought another director in and I didn't really see the match there -- Take Two is one of those companies that gives a lot of trust to their creative people and so they said to me, 'If you want to kill it Ken, kill it.' And I killed it." Levine said he ultimately didn't want to "see it done in a way I didn't think was right."

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Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter, or MaxNicholson on IGN.